A few questions about the failed Penske-Saturn deal

It's certainly understandable that a businessman as successful as Roger Penske wouldn't buy the Saturn dealership body from General Motors Co. without a future supplier of vehicles.

Penske Automotive Group Inc. said it couldn't go forward with the deal because an agreement to buy cars from an unnamed manufacturer, which turned out to be the Renault-Nissan alliance, fell apart at the last minute.

GM had agreed to supply three Saturn vehicles, the Aura sedan and the Outlook and Vue crossovers, to Penske for as many as two more years. Here's what I'm wondering:

Were GM and Penske expecting this deal to be profitable? It seems like someone as successful as Penske wouldn't want to lose money selling cars he would buy from GM. And why would GM engage in a deal that would result in it losing money building those cars?

Let's assume then that GM and Penske would have both profited from this deal. Why wouldn't GM want build cars for Penske indefinitely? After all, Saturn's product line-up is the best in its history. GM says, and many analysts agree, that the problem is GM did a poor job of marketing the vehicle. (Listen to GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz's assessment of that issue with WWJ here.)

Penske and the Saturn dealers would have worked on the marketing, leaving GM to manufacture the vehicles. The three Saturn vehicles GM would have supplied to Penske are built in plants with other GM vehicles and would have helped keep those plants operating at a high capacity.

Of course, the products would have to be refreshed regularly and that cost might have made a long-term deal with Penske untenable for GM.